


Voice of Reason

by Trash



Category: Linkin Park
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 22:15:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3745345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brad's life is one constant episode of déjà vu. Until Chester comes along</p>
            </blockquote>





	Voice of Reason

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted [here](http://graffitidec-fic.livejournal.com/27649.html)

Your life is one constant episode of déjà vu. Or at least, that’s how it seems. Like every day is the same as the last. That’s how it is when you have a family. Wife, kids, lovely suburban life style. Once you have that, the only surprise any more is the one in your kids’ cereal on a morning before you drive them to school. They belt up, of course, and your lovely wife pecks your cheek and you drive away.

Some mornings you imagine yourself crashing the car - splattering the white fences and polished windows with your blood and the mauled bodies of your children.

One diazepam and the thought doesn’t cross your mind again that day.

You pull up outside Sumac Elementary and climb out of the car, opening the door for your children (Karla and Tobin. Monica chose the names. You hate that you don’t give a shit.) They jump out and grin, run full pelt toward the front doors. Happy suburban families wave to their happy suburban kids and you want to fucking vomit.

“I’m not going and you can’t make me!”

You leans heavily against the car and glance to your left discreetly, watching as a man your age argue with his son who refuses to leave the car. His hair is black and from here you can see that it matches the polish on his nails. Matches his jeans and his tank top. Matches his glare as he grabs the squealing child and throws him over his shoulder, closing the car door with his foot. 

“Draven, I am your father and I am no longer asking I am telling you. School is good. School is fun.” You watch as he marches up to the front doors and places his son down gently, kneeling in front of him. You can’t hear their conversation from here, hushed tones and you figure bribery is involved because eventually the kid grins and runs in doors leaving his dad to stand up and head back to his car.

He catches you staring.

You want the earth to open up and swallow you. You stare at your shoes and shuffle slowly to open the car door. You can see his smiling reflection in the window.

He says “Hey.”

What the hell should you say? You haven’t made friends for years. Socialising isn’t exactly your speciality. You opt for turning to face him and smiling shyly “Hi.”

“I’m Chaz.” His grin is bright and he extends his hand to shake yours. Even though you take it, you’re nervous and your hand shake is lousy and something flickers in his dark eyes. “I’m sorry,” he laughs, “I don’t mean to be so forward.” 

He has tattoos. Flames up his wrists, rings on his fingers and you can’t stop staring. Still staring at his arms you say, “I’m Brad.”

When you look up Chaz is grinning and he asks, “You wanna go somewhere?”

You think of Monica at home, cleaning. The idea of going home makes you tired so you nod. It’s as if you can’t help it. “Sure,” you say, “anywhere in particular?”

You both end up in the park. The pair of you on the swings and he says “I’ve never seen you there before.”

“I usually leave as fast as I can,” shrug, “I hate it here.”

“The grass is always greener.”

As you swing you turn to him and raise an eyebrow.

Chaz (Chester, only I hate that name. It’s the same as the dumb cat on the Cheetos packet. How lame? Your name is cool. Is it short for Bradley?) explains “people always want away from where they are.”

He catches you staring at your arms and asks if you have any tattoos. You don’t. You’re shit scared, to be honest. Not so much of the pain, but the idea of permanence. It took you years to buck up the courage to ask Monica to marry you and now you think that’s one of your biggest ever regrets but you don’t tell Chester that. You shake your head and blush. He must think you’re so pathetic. 

“You should get one.”

“But what?”

“What do you like, Brad?”

You like waking up on a morning and taking something to numb and blur the day. You like coming home and washing down your valium with whiskey and sleeping all night long. Something in your bones tells you the answer but your mouth won’t form the words. You want to say you, I like you.

*

You become friends and slowly Chester takes away that feeling of constant déjà vu. Divorced and only looking after Draven once every month he is the free man you want to be. He works in an office, or so he says. Nothing about him screams shirt-and-tie unlike you, who people have said were born carrying a briefcase.

You’re lounging in your back yard. He dry-swallows a valium and grins. “I feel so mellow.”

“I’m so fucking stoned.” You are. Pot, cheap wine, your wife taking the kids to visit her parents and you lying about being too busy with work and the stars hanging above you in the sky. Times like this make you feel alive.

It’s been about a month since the day in the park. You’re still working up the courage to tell him that the only thing you really like any more is him. That your beautiful wife and your perfect kids could stay with your mother-in-law and you’d not miss them. The wine mixes with the pills, and your blood hums with energy from the joint between your fingers but you still can’t say it.

“There’s a twenty-four-hour tattoo studio near here.” Chester says, taking the joint from you and jamming it between his lips. 

You don’t need to be told twice. You take his hand and pull him to his feet and, since neither of you are anywhere near sober enough to drive, you follow him along the moonlit streets. He stops, waits on the corner under a street light for you to catch up. He asks you again “What do you like?”

This is your chance. You stand in front of him and lean in.

He steps back.

It feels like this could be the end of the world…but that could be the drugs. You stutter out an apology, say “I’m sorry...I’m drunk...I wasn’t thinking.”

“Okay.”

Just like that. Just that simple. Okay. He continues walking beside you and talks. You’re too busy feeling stupid to listen and when he wraps a hand around your forearm your skin burns and tingles.

He laughs, “You can keep walking if you want, but I’m going in here.”

The tattoo studio. An old converted store with a broken neon sign and flaking paint on the door. Half of you wants to run but there’s this other part of you, this part that Chester brought to life the day you met him, that makes you move forward into the dark of the studio.

Chester grins and turns to you, “You look so scared. How come you always spend your life running away? You can’t avoid being hurt all the time you know.”

You know that. And you ask him, if there’s so much pain in the world why would we want to hurt ourselves intentionally? 

He just shrugs, all nonchalant and cool but his pupils are huge and he smells of pot, “Tattoos exude pain and pleasure all at the same time.” He leans heavily on the counter and rings the little silver bell until a man appears from the back room. Chester, he gestures over his shoulder to you and says “my friend wants inked.”

You don’t.

You really don’t.

But you’ll do it anyway.

It hurts. That’s really all you remember. The immediate pain as the needle buzzed across your skin. You can remember Chester’s hand clutching yours, you can remember another joint being lit at some point. What you don’t remember is coming home but you can imagine it not being pretty. 

You wake up to find yourself sprawled out on top of the sheets, your face pressed into the pillow and you’re wondering how you could even breathe. Beside you is Chester, watching you. He looks as bad as you feel – like you’ve been hit by a truck.

You shift and sit up, noticing the bloody bandage tied around your wrist you sigh. Your arm feels bruised, sharp pain every time you move, but Chester’s dark eyes are watching you so you hold back a flinch.

There’s a sense of dread in your stomach when you begin to carefully peel back the bandage. You don’t want to know. You don’t want to see what you’ve done to yourself.

Black letters, a swirling font and the words ‘praying for rain’ wrap around your wrist. Words you can’t remember and a meaning you don’t understand. Your initial thought is ‘oh fuck’ closely followed by ‘I’m gonna be fired!’ and chased up by ‘is he still looking at me?’

Glancing over you notice he is. He reaches out and traces a finger over the inflamed skin of your forearm, avoiding your tattoo completely. He whispers “and I’m praying for tidal waves. I wanna see the ground give way. I wanna watch it all go down.”

His gentle touch soothes the heat radiating from your wrist and you smile softly, imagine kissing him again but don’t dare.

Chester says, as if he is the voice of infinite power, as if he speaks for everybody. Chester says “fuck suburbia.”

You laugh, then, and neither of you are sure if it’s genuine.


End file.
